


now each choice is the same

by thefigureinthecorner



Category: the bright sessions
Genre: Damien learns he's like really bad at being a normal decent human being, Damien learns how the world works a little bit, Damien learns that he can't just eat fried food right away after not eating properly for a long time, Gen, Sam and Mark are mentioned a bit but don't ever actually appear, also he has no idea what a tax is, damien's gonna get punched. it'll happen. you're welcome, i'm all for redemption arcs but with what he did he does not deserve one, minimal dialogue, or a job, redemption and self-improvement are not mutually exclusive, that being said he does get better as a person he just doesn't do it with the gang's help, there's gonna be at least one OC but none of them become major characters or anything, this is not a redemption fic btw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 19:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14142912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefigureinthecorner/pseuds/thefigureinthecorner
Summary: Damien is a person. He just has to learn how to be one.Without Mark.And, preferably, without getting punched in the face.(song title taken from black eyes by radical face)





	now each choice is the same

**Author's Note:**

> hoo boy i don't even know if this is a fic I intend on finishing in a definitive way.
> 
> planning? editing? never heard of them. i haven't even written a fic in any capacity in years at this point so we're jumping right into this.
> 
> also, to restate my tags: this is NOT a redemption fic. i'm all for AU fics where Damien gets redeemed before things get really messed up but this is not that. i'm also all for villain redemption arcs under many circumstances but I firmly believe Damien shouldn't get one because none of the current cast owe him any forgiveness.
> 
> this is Damien, post-48, trying to figure out how to exist on his own for once. he improves as a person but it's not meant to excuse his actions.
> 
> anyway, just some things to know going into this mess.

Damien doesn’t leave immediately.

Can’t leave immediately, actually. Even if he wanted to, he didn’t have enough money for a single granola bar, much less a bus ticket out of town. He stuck around for a few days, biding his time and trying to ration out his last remaining box of stale Lucky Charms while that Sam girl figured out paperwork for him. New identification, new medical forms, new bank account, new phone because god knows what weird tracking stuff Wadsworth might’ve put in his old one. Far as anyone needs to know now, he’s not Damien. He’s not even Robert. His forms list him as Stephen Hale, a name Sam had apparently found by cycling through a random name generator and choosing the first one that didn’t sound completely idiotic.

Damien still doesn’t like it, but the second he tries to complain even a bit, Sam threatens to just leave him on his own with this, so he shuts his mouth because that’s how things work now.

His bank account has money for a bus ticket, a week’s worth of shitty motels, and some food. After that, Sam says, he’s on his own, and that he should be grateful she even helped him this much so it’s up to him to get anything more than that.

Finally, over a month after Mark tells him to, he leaves. Takes the first bus out, doesn’t even pay attention to where it’s going or where he’s going, just pays the fare and leaves. He’s got a suitcase and a backpack to his name, having left most of his stuff behind for someone else to find; all he has are some clothes, a DS, his forms, and some miscellaneous photos and papers.

The bus pulls away from the stop and he watches his old life get smaller behind him.

\---

The bus stops, and Damien wakes up with a stiff neck and an impressive collection of drool forming down the side of his face and into his hood, which he quickly wipes off in a way that totally says _nope nothing embarrassing here please look away_. The stop is nearly a whole state over from where he started and when he checks his phone it turns out he’s slept for a full 12 hours on the bus, which. He doesn’t usually sleep in public, period. Sleeping near Mark was fine so long as Mark fell asleep first and Damien woke up first, but public spaces-- well.

He accidentally did once, when he was about 17. Weird things happened. Dream desires get a little odd sometimes. He decided it would be best to not repeat the incident.

The fact that this is no longer a concern for him is a little odd, but it’s the one thing that he might actually be okay with in this whole situation. Not being able to sleep on the bus from town to town would suck.

He’s slept far longer than intended, so checking into the motel is mostly for him to drop off his stuff; the first order of business is eating some actual goddamn food, because stubbornly rejecting Agent Green’s help had felt cathartic at first until he was dealing with wine hangovers _and_ hunger pains in the same day. How he could feel so nauseous and so hungry at the same time was beyond him.

He’s limited to areas within walking distance, since he has no car and there’s no taxi service, but luckily the bus has dumped him in Nowheresville, Where The Hell Am I, so the town is small enough that the few restaurants in the area are about as far away from his motel as literally the entire town, in that they are not far away at all.

He sticks to the IHOP down the street. He’s pretty sure he can make his food money stretch out more by filling out those dumb survey things the receipts have on them and getting some free pancakes, plus they have that really good fried steak thing he likes.


End file.
